


obsession

by starkravingmad (ohmyheichou)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, In a way, People may be OOC, but uh, mostly that just means people die lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 13:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18411503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyheichou/pseuds/starkravingmad
Summary: Pepper loves Tony.Her Tony.





	obsession

**Author's Note:**

> yay for original titles  
> idk where this came from tbh  
> has anyone seen the music video for 2pm's tiktok b/c that's where this came from pretty much  
> it's old  
> idk why I thought of it but here we are

When Virginia 'Pepper' Potts finally got the call, she knew immediately that she had made a mistake.

 

* * *

 

Pepper had been in bed with Stane from the start.

Well, kind of.

Not literally  _in bed_ , as the man disgusted her, and not quite  _from the start_ , as his machinations had begun well before her time, but close enough.

It was an accounting mistake that had brought her to Tony's notice. Similarly, accounting was what brought her to Stane, even if the discrepancies from his double dealings weren't quite the same kind of mistake. 

Corruption of the kind and scale that Stane was involved in couldn't work without involving multiple people. He had plenty of other workers at Stark Industries who were willing to look the other way. And so Pepper simply became another cog in the machine.

 

* * *

 

 _'I want to take a break,'_ Pepper said. Tony's face crumpled, but he let her go. He was so sweet, her Tony. His only flaw, really, was that he wouldn't let go of Iron Man. 

Pepper had asked for a break on purpose. She wanted Tony to choose her over Iron Man. As long as she stayed, Tony would work himself into a frenzy trying to get her to stay. He would do anything - except give up Iron Man. If she left, he would see what his life would be like without her. He would understand how it would feel to be Iron Man, to be one of the Avengers, without her support. So that when she came back, he would finally be ready to give it all up.

It was a calculated risk.

 

* * *

 

In the beginning, Pepper disliked Tony. He had money, fame, brains, looks - he had everything, and he spent half of his time drunk and in the arms of the latest slut to follow him back to his bed. She threw the women out each morning with pleasure, secure in her status above them. 

But she saw soon enough. 

Stane was Tony's godfather. He was trusted, and it was so easy for him to manipulate Tony into drinking too much, into going to the latest party, into saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Pepper helped him do it, but she was also the one who cleaned up the mess afterwards.

She held Tony sometimes, when he was too far gone to sleep with the woman he had brought back. She listened to him cry and wondered what she was doing.

 

* * *

 

Rhodey was waiting for her when she finally got to the hospital where Tony had been taken.

"They're going to replace the arc reactor," he said.

Pepper didn't say anything. She couldn't. She had wanted him to give up Iron Man, and now he never would. She had let this happen. Her gamble hadn't paid off.

Eventually, she got out the words, "What happened?"

"No one knows for sure. But I think he got into a fight with Captain America and the Winter Soldier."

Steve Rogers was nothing special. Pepper knew that. He had been made into Captain America, through no special merit of his own. Still, she had thought there was something there. She had thought that he wouldn't go off the rails and attack Tony.

They had all made mistakes. But as Pepper stared at the remnants of Tony's armor, she knew that so far, only Tony had paid for them.

And that couldn't stand.

 

* * *

 

Pepper stared at Stane's hands holding a gun and trembled, not from fear, but with rage. How dare he? How dare he threaten her? And how dare he threaten  _her_ Tony? 

She felt no remorse about killing him. None at all.

 

* * *

 

The thing about being the personal assistant to the CEO of the largest weapons manufacturing company was this - you got to know a lot of arms dealers. Pepper knew so many of them, had even slept with a couple of them.

And the thing about knowing arms dealers was - you could drop a word in an ear and drop a wad of cash in a hand and suddenly, your problems were gone.

Pepper still had all of her override codes for FRIDAY, and those codes still worked. She took a moment to relish the knowledge that Tony had not locked her out, not even though they were supposed to be on a break. Then she tasked FRIDAY with finding all those that had betrayed Tony. He didn't need them.

After that, she dropped some words, some money...and poof. Her problems were gone. Like magic.

 

* * *

 

Tony begged her to keep Extremis. He had modified it, he said, so that it would heal her  _without_ all of the glowing and exploding.

Pepper was tempted.

She had felt so, so powerful with it running through her veins. She had killed Killian, who dared to touch her and who dared to hurt Tony, and she had enjoyed it.

But she hesitated.

Tony had blown up his suits for her, yes, but how many of those had been doomed to begin with? And how long would it be until he built himself another army of suits? 

She didn't want to be a superhero. She didn't want to need protection because Tony was a superhero. She wanted it all to stop. Maybe they just needed a break.

 

* * *

 

Pepper changed her tactics, this time.

Iron Man wasn't something she could take away.

So instead, she had him give her Extremis - super strength and super healing.

Instead, she persuaded him to take a step back, to guide instead of leaping into the fray himself. Spider-Man was young, wasn't he? Why couldn't he take up Tony's mantle?

Tony listened to her, this time.

She held him, as she had done so often before, and listened to him mumble endearments as he fell asleep. She smiled, and thought,  _'You're mine.'_

 

 


End file.
